Thursday, July 18, 2013

Reputed New York mob figure Vincent Faraci, left, walks into the federal courthouse in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning with his lawyer, David Chesnoff. Faraci pleaded guilty to filing a false 2006 tax return.

Vincent Faraci, a mob-connected player in the racketeering days of the old Crazy Horse Too strip club, pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to filing a false 2006 tax return.

Faraci, 58, a reputed Bonanno crime family member now running a nightclub in Brooklyn, admitted in his plea agreement that he failed to report $134,904 in income on the tax return when he filed it in 2008. He also admitted he did not pay $46,869 in additional taxes.

When Senior U.S. District Judge Lloyd George asked him how he wanted to plead to the tax charge, he replied, “Guilty, your honor.”

George set an Oct. 28 sentencing. Faraci faces 15 to 21 months in prison on the charge under the terms of his plea agreement.

Faraci was allowed to remain free on his own recognizance, but ordered to surrender his passport. He has agreed to pay the $46,869 as restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

Afterward, Faraci declined comment. But his Las Vegas lawyer, David Chesnoff, said, “We’re very pleased with a fair resolution to an old tax dispute.”

The tax case is not related to a massive FBI-IRS investigation of the Crazy Horse Too several years ago.

Faraci, a former shift manager at the Crazy Horse Too, was one of 16 of the club’s employees who pleaded guilty in 2006 to a conspiracy charge of failing to pay taxes on tips and other income. He was sentenced in 2007 to 10 months behind bars, but was allowed to serve five months under home detention.

The group deal, which also included a guilty plea from Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo, brought an end to a decade-long federal racketeering investigation that uncovered a pattern of lawlessness at the strip club, once regularly visited by mobsters, politicians and celebrities.

Agents investigating a series of beatings at the club, including one involving Kansas City-area man Kirk Henry, who was paralyzed in a fight over a bar tab at the club in 2001.

Following his plea, Rizzolo spent a year in prison and lost his club, which was closed for several years until it re-opened this year under a new name and ownership.

Rizzolo, who was last reported to be selling cars, is still mired in civil litigation with Henry. As part of his deal in the racketeering case, Rizzolo was ordered to pay Henry $10 million, but has been slow to make good on the promise.

For years, Rizzolo was linked to a series of organized crime figures, including Joseph Cusumano, once a lieutenant for Anthony Spilotro, the Chicago mob’s slain overseer of street rackets in Las Vegas.

Rocco Lombardo, the brother of onetime reputed Chicago mob boss Joseph Lombardo, worked with Faraci as a doorman at the Crazy Horse Too. Lombardo also pleaded guilty in the racketeering investigation, receiving 60 months of probation.

In recent months, suspected Bonanno mob associate John Venizelos, the manager of Faraci’s Brooklyn nightclub, Jaguars 3, has attracted headlines in the New York media for his alleged involvement in a major marijuana trafficking organization tied to a Canadian drug lord.

The New York Post reported in April that Venizelos had a deal to plead guilty in the federal investigation into the drug organization, which is suspected of operating through alliances with the Hells Angels and a Mexican cartel.